An extended analysis of the fallout, lucidly and brilliantly done as always, in Billmon's inimitable style.
What is depressing though is Billmon's conclusion. I believe that is the raison d'etre for sites like dKos and others, to fill the vacuum that he speaks about and (ultimately) to prove him wrong. Because the Dem party machinery appears right now to be as slow-footed and indifferent to this crisis as the Repubs themselves.
..barring some dramatic new development, like a major terrorist attack -- the end result of Bush's collapse is likely to be a huge political vacuum, one that grows even stronger as the popular mood continues to sour. And it almost certainly will continue to sour, if the GOP policy machine keeps cranking out conservative "solutions" that have little or no bearing on the problems the public wants solved. But the machine doesn't know how to do anything else.
If the present really were like the past, I suppose such a vacuum eventually would force the Democrats into power -- whether or not they deserve it or are ready for it. There can come a point where the voters get so cranky that even a clueless opposition party can win with a slogan like: "Had enough?"
But, as I've previously mused, I'm not sure the American political system (or American society in general) works that way any more. The power of corporate capitalism is so strong, and the American people so broken to the habits of empire, that the GOP machine may be able to stagger on for quite a long time, even as it grows progressively more out of touch -- both with reality and the voters.
The ultimate Potemkin Village, in other words, may be the archaic structures of the American republic. And while it will certainly take a much stronger hurricane than Katrina to blow it down, history suggest that such storms do come along, eventually.
Read it all.. most highly recommended.